LAKEWOOD -When Alejandra Castillo, 17, wanted to start a club for girls’ empowerment at Lakewood High School, she immediately went to Principal Marcy Marshall.
Marshall’s door was always open, Alejandra said.
Last year, when students wanted to walk out after a deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, Marshall encouraged them and led them, according to Roselyn Rojas, 15.
On Thursday, it was the students’ turn to be there for Marshall.
“We’re here fighting for them like they always fought for us,” Roselyn said.
Word began spreading earlier in the week, via Snapchat and Facebook mostly, that on Thursday nightthe Lakewood Board of Education would vote to transfer Marshall and Vice Principal Douglas Riley to a district elementary school.
More than 100 public school students and their families attended the school board meeting, when — despite protests — the boardapproved the transfers.
Those weren’t the only controversial moves on the board’s agenda.
The board also voted to transfer, from the high school to the middle school, a math teacher who has spent years in court arguing the school district deserves additional state funding. Trial testimony wrapped up last week.
Arthur Lang, who is also a lawyer, filed the case five years ago andat the time without the school board’s support. In a profile published earlier this week, Lang's law professor — who is helping with the case — called Lang a "heroic figure" for his work on behalf of Lakewood students.
Now, Lang said he will file a petition with the Public Employment Relations Commission, the state body that oversees labor disputes for public employees, contesting the job transfer. An affidavit signed by Lang claims that the board's vote to send Lang to the middle school was “being undertaken to discipline and retaliate against me for my involvement in the foregoing litigation.”
Lang’s affidavit says that he had to issue subpoenas to get the superintendent to testify in the case and for the board and attorney Michael Inzelbuch to cooperate and provide evidence.
“The high school has a shortage of math teachers and they’re transferring me away,” Lang said late Thursday. Of seven math teacher positions, five are vacant going into the 2019-2020 school year, according to Inzelbuch and Superintendent Laura Winters. Winters later said five of 11 math teacher jobs were vacant.
Lang has been teaching at the high school since 2003 and has not taught middle school, according to his affidavit. His affidavit notes that, late last year, he was reprimanded by the school district after another employee claimed Lang pushed the worker, an allegation Lang says is false.
Inzelbuch, the school board's spokesman as well as its lawyer, declined to comment on the reason for Lang, Marshall and Riley’s transfers because they are personnel issues. None of the three educators attended Thursday'smeeting.
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Marshall and Riley will be moved to Piner Elementary school in August, according to the board agenda, which does not indicate if their salaries would remain the same. Ella G. Clarke Elementary Principal Ebony Rivera and Vice Principal Magdalis Rodriguez Jones will take over at the high school, and current Piner Elementary leaders Deborah Meabe and Tobree Mostel will move to Clarke elementary, according to the board agenda.
Board members Isaac Zlatkin and Bentzion Treisser, who voted in favor of the changes, declined to comment as they left the meeting.
The controversial school leadership restructuringbrought tensions that simmer in Lakewood to the forefront. Several current and former students spoke to the board, expressing concern the board was not listening to their concerns nor acting on their behalf.
MORE:In Lakewood schools, funding drama leaves more questions than answers
Tayon Hart graduated from Lakewood High School in 2017 and attends the University of South Carolina.
“It seems like every year we are fighting for pieces of the puzzle, our biggest pieces of the puzzle,” he told the school board. “A few years back, we fought for sports. A couple years back we fought for busing, and now we’re fighting for our principal. … Enough is enough.”
District leaders blame the funding crisis on the state, and in particular a funding formula that doesn’t count the vast number of private school students in Lakewood even as it requires the public schools to pay for some services for them.
About 6,000 children attend eight public schools here, but more than 34,000 attend approximately 130 private schools, which are mostly Orthodox Jewish yeshivas. The high cost of transportation for private school students and special education are significant burdens on the public schools’ budget. The Department of Education also notes years of mismanagement and unnecessary spending within the district.
With increasing predictability,the school board has to scramble to balance its budget each year.
It has only been able to do so in recent years by taking out massive loans. For the 2019-2020 school year, the district will borrow $36 million.
SCHOOL SHUTDOWN STUNT?:Lakewood schools reopen, banking on $36 million loan from NJ
But the budget battle wasn’t foremost on many students’ minds Thursday. Roselyn and Alejandra made signs urging the board to leave Marshall and Riley in their current jobs.
Roselyn gathered the signs at the end of the night, after her fellow students and their families had gone home.
“We just feel so helpless,” Roselyn said after the meeting. “What else can you do now?
“We have to come back here and walk these halls and it just won’t be the same without Mrs. Marshall and Mr. Riley.”
Stacey Barchenger: @sbarchenger; 732-427-0114; sbarchenger@gannettnj.com
